Former Office of Legal Counsel head and “torture” memo author Steven Bradbury became the latest Bush DOJ official to become a partner at the D.C. office of Dechert. Read the law firm’s news release from last week here.

Steven Bradbury (DOJ)

The ex-OLC chief will join former Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel Deputy Assistant Attorney General Steven Engel and former DOJ Antitrust Division Chief of Staff Hill Wellford at the firm. Read our previous post on Engel and Wellford here.

Bradbury — who is under investigation by Office of Professional Responsibility for his role in authorizing brutal interrogation tactics — will focus on securities and antitrust litigation at Dechert.

“Steve is an extraordinarily talented litigator who in his 20-year career has been involved in some of the most significant litigation in his field,” said Dechert chairman Barton J. Winokur, in a statement. “He is a valuable addition to our antitrust and trial practices and we are pleased that he has chosen to join us.”

Texas Republican Sens. John Cornyn and Kay Bailey Hutchison are moving serenely forward with their own U.S. Attorney selection process, ignoring the red-faced Texas House Democrats who’ve been screaming that they’re in charge of the recommendations.

As they did during the Bush administration, Hutchison and Cornyn assembled a screening committee to select finalists for U.S. Attorney, marshal and judicial vacancies. The fact that a Democrat now sits in the White House didn’t concern them. “The fact is, it’s the Senate’s prerogative who will go forward,” Cornyn told me in a hallway interview in the Capitol today.

Rep. Lloyd Doggett (gov)

This attitude has caused Texas Democrats, led by Rep. Lloyd Doggett of Austin, to go ballistic. In March, the Democrats convened an anguished meeting with White House counsel Greg Craig, who’s been trying to mediate the dispute, though not very successfully. Click here and here to read our previous coverage of the dispute. The only concession the GOP senators offered was to add a few Democrats to their screening committee and identify who’s on the panel. In years past, the process had been shrouded in secrecy and run entirely by Republicans.

On Thursday, the screening committee’s recommended finalists for the U.S. Attorney jobs in the Eastern and Northern Districts of Texas are slated to meet with the Texas senators in Washington, Cornyn spokesman Kevin McLaughlin said. He declined to name the finalists. In the Capitol today, I asked Cornyn, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, whether his committee was proceeding with approval of Doggett and the Texas Democrats.

“I don’t care if he agrees or not,” Cornyn said, referring to Doggett. “No applicant will go foward who does not go through the screening committee, because I’m not going to return a blue slip on them.” A blue slip is a Senate tradition whereby home-state senators register their approval or disapproval of judicial and and other law-enforcement nominees. To not return a blue slip, or to return a blue slip with a negative mark on it, is a way of signalling to the White House that the senator will object.

President George W. Bush generally ignored blue slips from Democrats. But the Obama White House has been much more solicitous of Republican senators in the nominating process. For example, they’ve let objections from Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) stall a U.S. Attorney candidate for the Middle District of Alabama who’s already been vetted and is ready to go. Read our report of the Shelby story here.

We called Doggett’s office for comment Tuesday. We’ll let you know when we hear back.

Democratic New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine turned up the heat on his Republican opponent, former U.S. Attorney Chris Christie, in a television spot that shows the ex-prosecutor stalking out of a House hearing on contracts he awarded as U.S. Attorney.

The attack ad highlights a contract worth up to $52 million that Christie gave to former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft to monitor a medical device maker accused of offering kickbacks to doctors. The commercial also draws attention to a monitoring contract to David Kelley, a former U.S. Attorney in Manhattan, who had previously investigated Christie’s brother for stock fraud. Kelley had declined to bring an indictment.

“But when the time came for telling the truth, Christie got up and left,” the announcer said. “Chris Christie. Unbelievable.”

Christie is leading Corzine in the polls. The former U.S. Attorney has the support of 53 percent of likely voters, according to the latest Quinnipiac University poll. The New Jersey governor has the backing of 41 percent of likely voters, the survey said.

A Pennsylvania nominating commission has reached an agreement on several candidates to replace the state’s U.S. Attorneys but a panel co-chair refused to divulge any names, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported today.

Tom Kline (Kline & Specter)

Committee chair Tom Kline told the newspaper that his committee settled on  a number of “qualified candidates” to succeed Eastern District Interim U.S. Attorney Michael Levy, Middle District U.S. Attorney Martin C. Carlson and Western District U.S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan.

Kline, a lawyer with Philadelphia personal injury law firm Kline & Specter, co-chairs the 16-member panel with colleague Shanin Specter, the son of Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.). Last week, the committee interviewed more than 40 candidates for the different posts. Read our previous post here.

Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) and Arlen Specter will submit U.S. Attorney recommendations to the White House once they receive the panel’s finalists.

U.S. Attorney Drew Wrigley will step down as North Dakota’s top federal prosecutor on September 11, Fargo’s WDAY-TV reported today.

Drew Wrigley (DOJ)

The Bush appointee has served as the North Dakota U.S. Attorney since 2oo1.  He will become the vice president of  the Fargo-based Noridian Administrative Services, which helps businesses with information management and customer service.

Wrigley told WDAY-TV he hopes the death penalty appeals case of Alfonoso Rodriguez will be decided before he leaves office. Rodriguez was convicted in 2006 for the murder and abduction of Dru Sjodin. Read the Minneapolis Star-Tribune article on Rodriguez here.

President Obama has yet to nominate a U.S. Attorney to replace Wrigley. The North Dakota congressional delegation has recommended several U.S. Attorney candidates to the president including Jasper Schneider and Janice Morley, according to WDAY-TV.

Schneider is a member of the North Dakota House of Representatives and a lawyer at Fargo’s Schneider Law Firm, where he handles cases on workforce safety, employment law and civil litigation. Read his full profile here.

Morley is an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the North Dakota office.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers (D-Mich.) had a lot on his mind going into a House subcommittee hearing today on the Bureau of Prisons.

John Conyers (Gov)

His wife, former Detroit City Council member Monica Conyers, pleaded guilty in federal court last month to one count of conspiring to commit bribery and could spend up to five years in prison. Last week, a conservative legal group asked the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct to investigate whether he was a player in his wife’s corruption scandal.

At the panel hearing, Conyers wanted BOP Director Harley Lappin to give him a general assessment of U.S. prison life.

“I don’t know if there’s anything called prisoner morale, but what’s it like in the slammer?â€� Conyers asked.

The House Judiciary chair and House Judiciary crime, terrorism and homeland security subcommittee members also had concerns about prison overcrowding and insufficient staffing.

BOP received $5.6 billion last year. President Obama requested almost $6 billion for the bureau this year. The House Appropriations Committee report that accompanied the legislation on the DOJ budget called the understaffing “chronic.” The report said staffing problems were the result of “inadequate budget requests.”

“Our number one priority right now in the Bureau of Prisons  is increasing the number of staff in our institutions that directly supervise inmates,” Lappin said.

The Department of Justice has responded to an ethics group’s request for an investigation into whether Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) engaged in criminal violations of federal campaign finance law by suggesting that the group forward its complaint to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

The ethics group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), sent a letter on July 9 to Attorney General Eric Holder and Public Integrity Section Chief William Welch urging an investigation into Ensign’s failure to report severance payments made to his former employee and mistress Cynthia Hampton when he fired her from his campaign and political action committees.

In his response, Welch told CREW’s Executive Director Melanie Sloan that she should provide any information she has to the FBI, which will decide whether a federal investigation is warranted. Sloan did as she was told, but threw in a not so subtle jab at Welch in her forwarded complaint to the FBI:

In a letter dated July 16, 2009, Mr. Welch advised me that the FBI, not the Public Integrity Section, will determine whether a federal investigation is warranted.  Mr. Welch’s deferral of jurisdiction is surprising, given that the Public Integrity Section’s own website indicates the section “monitors the investigation and prosecution of election and conflict of interest crimes.”  http://www.usdoj.gov/criminal/pin.  Perhaps in the aftermath of the mishandling of the prosecution of former Senator Ted Stevens (R-AK), the Public Integrity Section is not eager to investigate another sitting senator.

Ouch.

Sloan went so far as to tell TPMMuckraker that the Public Integrity Section “punted” on the complaint.

It’s fascinating how clubby the Washington legal community is.

I mean, here’s former Solicitor General Ted Olson, one of the key architects of the 1990s “vast right-wing conspiracy” against the Clintons. In January, he co-wrote a very nice letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee lavishing praise on former Clinton White House associate counsel Elena Kagan, nominated to be Solicitor General.

Now, strapping his ideological armor back on, the Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher partner is preparing to square off against Kagan in September, when she makes her debut before the Supreme Court.

They will be arguing opposite sides of this issue: whether the conservative Citizens United advocacy group broke election law by using corporate contributions to distribute a sinister anti-Hillary video called “Hillary: The Movie” during last year’s presidential campaign.

Olson in the 1990s was in the middle of practically every effort by conservatives to pump up the scandals that almost drove Bill Clinton out of office. Just one example: Olson served on the board of the conservative American Spectator magazine, which spent more than $2 million for something called the “Arkansas Project,” to dig dirt on the Clintons. The Arkansas Project revealed Paula Jones to the world. The former Arkansas state employee’s claims of sexual harassment by then-Gov. Clinton came under investigation by Olson’s friend Ken Starr, the Whitewater special counsel. Starr’s probe led to Monica Lewinsky, which led to Hillary going on television to denounce a “vast right-wing conspiracy” trying to bring the Clintons down, all of which ultimately culminated in Clinton’s impeachment on perjury and obstruction of justice charges.

But that’s the story of Olson the ideological warrior. Then there’s the Olson who’s a wise and respected member of the Washington legal establishment. In the latter capacity, Olson in January signed a letter with former Clinton administration SG Walter Dellinger in support of Kagan’s nomination.

Dellinger and Olson wrote of Kagan:

“The well deserved stature that Kagan has achieved in the legal profession will enhance her tenure as Solicitor General …. Her brilliant intellect will be respected by the Justices, and her directness, candor and frank analysis will make her an especially effective advocate.”

In all, eight former SGs put their name to the letter in support of Kagan’s nomination for the Senate Judiciary Committee. Among them: Ken Starr.

Funding for the Justice Department Community Oriented Policing Services was at its lowest during the Bush administration but it received a boost from Recovery Act money this year, according to a DOJ Office of Inspector General report released today.

The COPS program was established in 1994 to help state, local and tribal law enforcement agencies hire officers, purchase new equipment and train cops. After funding topped out at $1.6 billion in 1998, the yearly COPS allocation went as low as $220 million in 2006, according to the report. In addition, most of the Bush-era COPS grants were used for new equipment and methamphetamine initiatives, the report said.

This year, the COPS program is on the rebound. President Obama requested $761 million for the program on top of the $1 billion COPS already received from the Recovery Act. The DOJ also created the COPS Hiring Recovery Program to help hire more police officers.

“The nature and amount of the Recovery Act funding represents a significant change from COPS’ recent grant program history, both in the amount of funding and in the program to be implemented,” the report said.

The IG report did, however, make some suggestions. The IG recommendations come first, followed by comments from COPS Acting Director Timothy J. Quinn in italics.

-We believe COPS should consider developing guidance to help grant administrators identify the activities that should be provided through contracts rather than through grants or cooperative agreements.

[W]ith regard to awarding funds for technical assistance and training activities, a grant or cooperative agreement is typically the legally appropriate funding instrument, with a cooperative agreement allowing for COPS to have substantial involvement in the assistance/training content or agenda.

-We believe that grantee compliance could be improved by collecting more information from grantees and through requiring high-risk grantees to demonstrate that they understand key grant-related responsibilities.

In addition to the general government-wide clarifications and assurances, the COPS Office ensured that the COPS Hiring Recovery Program application contained specific certifications pertaining to the award requirements regarding the nonsupplanting of federal funds, retention of officer positions following the conclusion of federal funding, and payment of only entry-level salaries and fringe benefits for officers.

-We also observed that COPS could improve upon its ability to identify high-risk grantees by increasing the number of and providing more guidance to the components that participate in the grantee vetting process.

Every vetting list includes the contact information of a COPS staff member available to answer questions, and work closely with components on their re5ponses, and who can conduct further probing of the information provided, if necessary. In additi0n, COPS continues to add information to our website with up-t0-date and relevant materials concerning the vetting process. As a pan of this endeavor, COPS will be posting Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) pertaining to vetting on our website, which will provide further guidance on the vetting process to better inform components about this activity and the ramifications of their responses.

-COPS could improve its grant monitoring efforts by developing recurring and mandatory training programs for all grantees, especially those that may be at higher risk for compliance issues, and by using Internet-based methods to implement that training.

The COPS Office agrees with the [Office of Inspector General] that the use of the Internet is an efficient and cost effective means for implementing grantee training. As noted previously, in preparation for the COPS Hiring Recovery Program, COPS has awarded funding to establish a CHRP “eLearn Center” to deliver both grants management training and community’ policing training to grantee agencies.

-COPS also could improve grantee monitoring by increasing its information sharing with [Office of Justice Programs] and [Office on Violence Against Women], the other DOJ grant administering components.

[B]ecause the COPS Management System (CMS) utilized for award administration is not a web-based system, access to CMS is only available within the physical location of the COPS Office or via remote access through the Justice Secure Remote Access (JSRA) connection using a COPS-issued laptop computer. However, any and all grantee information within the system can be provided as customized reports to [OJP Office of Audit, Assessment, and Management] and [OJP Office of the Chief Financial Officer] upon request by either office, and such requests are processed on a routine and timely basis.

-We also believe that COPS grant program performance could be improved by tracking outputs related to the individual grant programs, and by providing grant recipients with assistance and guidance specific to the individual grant programs.

[T]hree performance measures specific to the Recovery Act have been created by the COPS Office and approved by [Office of Management and Budget]. These measures — the average community policing capacity of COPS Hiring Recovery Program grantees, the number of jobs created, and the number of jobs preserved — will be measured through quarterly progress reports assessing the number of new sworn officer jobs created and/or preserved, as well as through an annual survey that gauges the community policing capacity implementation rating of grantees.

Solicitor General Elena Kagan will make her debut before the Supreme Court on Sept. 9, reports The BLT. She plans to argue Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, known as the “Hillary: The Movie” case.

Elena Kagan (usdoj)

Kagan will argue opposite former Solicitor General Theodore Olson, now a partner at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher. He is representing Citizens United, the sponsors of the movie, which is harshly critical of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The BLT notes that, as SG under President George W. Bush, Olson once defended the law he now challenges: The Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, or “McCain-Feingold.”

The Supreme Court ordered oral arguments as it recessed for summer, sending shivers down the spines of supporters of campaign finance reform. They fear the Court has designs to overturn the ban on the use of corporate money for independent campaign expenditures.

While the movie was shown in theaters and on DVD, a mixed panel of federal district and appellate judges here in Washington dashed the group’s plans to advertise it on TV and release it via video-on-demand during Clinton’s presidential run. The judges ruled that the movie constituted an “electioneering communication” regulated under McCain-Feingold because it was funded by corporate money.

The Supreme Court heard arguments in the case in March, betraying little until Deputy Solicitor General Malcolm Stewart acknowledged that the law could also be used to ban campaign-related books in some situations. Several justices appeared to disagree.

The briefs for the September arguments are due this week. This time around, the Court will consider whether to overturn Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce and part of McConnell v. FEC.